Looking Over The Overlooked
At Big Hollywood, a pretty bad list of the top overlooked Best Pictures from the past:
1. Sunrise: A Song Of Two Humans (1927) – Not just the best picture of that year, but one of the greatest achievements in cinema history. Were it not for the height of the MGM musical in the late forties and early fifties, you’d now be reading an argument that film as an art form peaked with “Sunrise.”
2. The Searchers (1956) – Arguably the greatest film — not just Western - ever produced. John Ford’s epic character study of a man who helps create a civilization that will not have a place for him received a grand total of zero nominations.
3. The Wild Bunch (1969) – Was it the violence, which looks pretty tame by today’s standards, that turned the Academy off? Something has to explain why “Hello, Dolly!” And “Anne of a Thousand Days” made the cut and Peckinpah’s masterpiece did not.
4. A Night At The Opera (1934) – It would take a revival three decades later for the genius of the Marx Brothers to be fully appreciated. “Duck Soup” was never nominated either, but I’m partial to this one.
5. Sweet Smell Of Success (1957) – The dark, cynical response to anyone who says Tony Curtis wasn’t one helluva actor.
Now I don't expect the list to have many of the choices I'd make, since it's a rare year when the Academy comes close to giving the Best Picture award to the best picture. Still, not much of a group.
Sunrise makes no sense, since it actually won the Best Picture award in the first ceremony ever (the award was split in two that year--don't ask).
The Searchers is a great example of a weak 50s film that's been blown up into a classic.
The Wild Bunch is wildly overrated.
A Night At The Opera is from 1935, and the Marx Brothers' comic brilliance was pretty well appreciated in their day. Sure, why not best picture, but then, I can name four or five other Marx Bros. films that should also have won that award.
I love Sweet Smell Of Success, but a flop like that was never going to win any awards, and it does have significant third act problems.
posted by LAGuy @ 12:34 AM
5 Comments:
Of course LAGuy rightly points this kind of stuff out when done by the left as well. There are way too many people who insist on seeing everything through their political filter. I have done it myself.
I love The Wild Bunch, but...
Sorry, I forget what I was going to say. I still can't get over the fact that Sunrise somehow got onto that list.
What does the "left" (or "right") have to do with post?
Due to its reputation, I recently bought the special re-issue of The Wild Bunch and watched it and the special- Not a bad Western but way too much "Art."
NEGuy, Big Hollywood is all about right leaning take on Hollywood.
My point to be "left" or "right" on entertainment is completely meaningless. (It doesn't even make much sense in politics)
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